BACKWARD GLANCES — Wrestler gets to gym just in time

Thursday

Feb 7, 2013 at 12:01 AMFeb 7, 2013 at 12:13 PM

See what was happening in Redwood Falls 50, 25, and 10 years ago this week.

Joshua Dixon, Staff Writer

1963—50 years ago• Le Thi Gon, new bride of Bill Anderson, became the first Vietnamese woman to move to the Redwood area.They met in Saigon while Bill was a signal corpsman sent to the nation to fight guerilla fighter, and she was a clerk at a Saigon hotel. The couple lived at the Redwood County Nursing Home (currently the Redwood County Museum) while they looked for a place to settle.• RFHS wrestler Ray Bliss slid off the road while driving to the Southwest conference championship, and arrived at the school just as his opponent was about to be awarded a forfeit victory. Bliss won, then went on to win two more bouts.• The RFHS Future Homemakers of America sponsored “TSD Week” (Teenage Safe Driving Week) at the school, complete with cash prizes for the winner of a slogan contest, and a pep fest on Friday.• The Federal Aviation Administration approved instrument-only landings and takeoffs from the Redwood Falls airport, allowing planes to use the airport in weather that would have been too dangerous before.• Redwood County’s first member of the Peace Corps, Donald Hoffman of Delhi, was released after serving 14 months of his two-year enlistment when he contracted amoebic hepatitis in India.Peace Corps volunteer Joyce Jensen of Redwood Falls was still serving as a teacher’s aid in the Philippines.

1988—25 years ago• When the 1988 session of the Minnesota state legislature opened, Sen. Dave Frederickson sponsored a bill seeking a $6.2 million state loan toward building a new high school in Redwood Falls.• In related news, the school board gave tentative approval to a 110-acre site for a new high school east of Reede Gray Elementary School (that is, on the current RVHS site, but including all the land to Highway 19/71, where Wal-Mart is today.)• The school board also approved a policy that would allow AIDS-infected students or staff attend school as long as their condition “does not create a substantial risk of the transmission of illness to children or employees of the school district.”• Retired RFHS principal George Ramseth was wintering in McAllen, Texas, taking in a college basketball game in Edinburg, Texas, when he saw a familiar face across the gymnasium.It turned out to be 1974 RFHS grad Craig Thompson, then serving as director of public relations for the NBA Kansas City Kings’ basketball team.• The Gazette’s spring 1988 bridal section included an article about the latest new way to save wedding memories — videotape.

2003—10 years ago• Both hockey teams went on their knees on the ice when a Pee-Wee player got slammed hard during a hockey game — and didn’t get up. The boy, from Hopkins, was shaken but walked off the rink under his own power.• More than 100 tribal representatives from as far away as Nebraska, Montana, and Canada converged on Jackpot Junction Casino and Hotel for a three-day conference about how to deal with treaties tribes signed with the federal and state governments going back to the early 19th century.• After several years working to make it happen, RVHS student Lana Hallberg brought 150 area teenage girls to the community center for a JUST (“Jesus Unites School Teens”) dance.